Peers Wins World Tour Final, Arevalo Wins 10th Singles Title, U.S. Doubles Success

Tagged with: Alex Rybakov, Austin Krajicek, Benjamin Lock, Jakob Sude, Joao Monteiro, John Peers, Marcelo Arevalo, Nik Scholtz, Tennys Sandgren

Five years ago John Peers was finishing out his collegiate career at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and on Sunday he and his doubles partner Henri Kontinen won the year-ending Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London. The match didn’t exactly start off on the right foot for the Peers/Kontinen team after they dropped the opening set to Rajeev Ram (Illinois ’03*) and Raven Klaasen 6-2 however Peers/Kontinen rebounded to take the second set 6-1 to set up a winner take all third set supertiebreak. The server won each of the first 16 points in the tiebreak until Peers/Kontinen earned the mini-break off the Klaasen serve to take a 9-8 lead. Peers closed it out with a service winner to make the final 2-6, 6-1, 10-8. Peers and Kontinen split $455,000 and earned 1500 ATP points while Ram and Klaasen split $245,000 and earned 800 ATP points. 

 

Austin Krajicek (Texas A&M ’11) and Tennys Sandgren (Tennessee ’11*) won their sixth doubles title as a team, fifth Challenger, when they won two tight sets over the British team of Luke Bambridge and Liam Broady in the finals of the $50K JSM Challenger of Champaign-Urbana. Krajicek/Sandgren trailed 5-3 in the first set but they held from 40/15 and broke from 30/40 to even it at 5-5. After a pair of holds Krajicek/Sandgren won the first two points of the tiebreak and never trailed in route to taking it 7-4. Krajicek/Sandgren broke to start the second set but Bambridge/Broady broke back to even it at 4-4. The second set would also go to a tiebreak and after dropping the first point Krajicek/Sandgren took the next six and closed it out 7-6(4), 7-6(2). It was Krajicek’s 23rd career pro doubles title while it was Sandgren’s 16th. 

 

 

Dominic Cotrone (South Florida ’16) and Robert Galloway (Wofford ’15) won their first doubles title as a team with a straight set win over West Florida’s Alex Peyrot and Pedro Dumont in the finals of the $10K USA F37 Futures in Pensacola. Cotrone/Galloway served for the first set up 5-3 but Peyrot/Dumont broke on the no-ad point and then held to even it at 5-5. Cotrone/Galloway held from 40/15 and then broke on the no-ad point to take the opening set 7-5. Cotrone/Galloway opened up a 5-1 lead in the second set and they managed to serve it on their second chance to win it 7-5, 6-3. The doubles title was both Cotrone and Galloway’s fourth overall.  

 

 

Marcelo Arevalo (Tulsa ’11*) won his 10th career singles title with a straight set win over Benjamin Lock (Florida State ’16) in the finals at the $10K El Salvador F1 Futures in San Salvador. Arevalo broke Lock in an eight-deuce game to go ahead 4-2 in the first set and then broke him again to close out the set 6-2. Arevalo went ahead 2-0 in the second but Lock broke and held for 2-2. It stayed on serve until Arevalo broke Lock in a five-deuce game to go up 5-3 and then he served out the match at love to win it 6-2, 6-3. When these 18 points are added in the week after next Arevalo will be right around his career high ranking of 176. Lock will have a new career ranking of around 575 when this week’s rankings come out and then when these 10 points are added in the following week he’ll rise inside 540. Below is post-match interview that Arevalo did with El Grafico (only in Spanish). 

 

 

Jakob Sude (Oklahoma State ’15) won his third doubles title of the year, sixth career, when he and Timur Khabibulin defeated Domagoj Biljesko and Antun Vidak in the finals of the $10K Greece F10 Futures in Heraklion. Sude/Khabibulin jumped out to a 4-1 first set lead but Biljesko/Vidak took five of the next six games to go ahead 6-5. Sude/Khabibulin broke at love to force a tiebreak and then they won the final two points of the tiebreak to take the set 7-6(5). Sude/Khabibulin broke for a 3-2 lead in the second set and they held comfortably three more times to close it out 7-6(5), 6-4. Sude’s career high doubles ranking of 670 should rise to around 550 when these points are added in a week from now. 

Nik Scholtz (Ole Miss ’15) advanced to his third final of the year after taking out the top seed Jordi Samper-Montana 6-2, 6-4 at the $10K South Africa F3 Futures in Stellenbosch however he couldn’t stop the buzzsaw that is Lloyd Harris in the finals. Harris earned the lone break of the first set when he broke Scholtz from 30/40 to go up 6-5 and then he held at love to take the set 7-5. Harris opened up a 4-0 lead in the second set before Scholtz took four of the next five to pull within 5-4. Harris was able to serve it out, in a two-deuce game, to extend his amazing winning streak to 30 with a 7-5, 6-4 win. 

Joao Monteiro (Virginia Tech ’16) played for his second singles title of the year after crushing Mick Lescure 6-1, 6-0 in the semifinals of the $10K Spain F37 Futures in Almeria but unfortunately his match against Ricardo Ojeda Lara didn’t go as well in the finals. Monteiro went up an early break at 2-1 in the first but Ojeda Lara broke back in a one-deuce game to even it at 2-2 and then broke from 15/40 to take the opening set 6-4. Ojeda Lara jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the second set and closed it out 6-4, 6-1 in 1 hour and 10 minutes. Monteiro entered the week with a career high ranking of 683 and should have another career high ranking each of the next two weeks when last week’s two quarterfinal points and this week’s ten finals points are entered.  

Alex Rybakov’s (TCU Soph) road came to an end in the semifinals of the $10K USA F37 Futures in Pensacola. Rybakov, who was the runner-up last year, lost to the second seed Gianni Mina 6-2, 6-3 in 1 hour and 27 minutes. Rybakov, who entered the week ranked 740, will see his ranking fall to around 850 next week and then to around 925 the following week so it’ll be interesting to see if he is back in Fort Worth in January. 

Ayaka Okuno (Georgia ’13*) was attempting to win her third doubles title of the year but she and Rika Fujiwara fell 6-7(4), 6-2, 10-5 to Ksenia Lykina and Akiko Omae in the finals of the ITF $50K in Toyota, Japan. 

 

*didn’t stay at school for all four years

 

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